Spyro the Dragon
Spyro the Dragon (スパイロ Supairo in Japanese) is the main protagonist and titular character of the Spyro the Dragon series and a former mascot for the Sony PlayStation. This iteration of everyone's favourite purple dragon is the most prolific out of the three known, having starred in 10 games (11 if one counts the Reignited Trilogy, and 13 if one counts it as three separate games), with one prominent featuring role and a couple of cameos in Crash Bandicoot games. Character Development and History Pre-History and Disruptor Insomniac Games was founded in 1994 by Ted Price and named in 1995. Their first project, Disruptor, a first-person shooter, performed poorly, and Universal decided to contract them to create three games for Sony's PlayStation console. The poor sales disheartened the company and they had decided to do something different for their next project. Due to the changing demographic for the PlayStation, at the suggestion of Mark Cerny they decided to make a child-friendly game, with the success of games like Super Mario 64 making them decide upon a platformer as their genre of choice. It was at this point that the game was set in motion. Character Conception Spyro as a concept was originally brought up by Insomniac in-house artist Craig Stitt, who had an interest in the fictional beasts. With the dragon decided upon, the developers then began conceptualizing names and potential designs for the character. The first suggested idea for Spyro was a green dragon initially named Pete, which may or may not be a reference to Disney's 1977 film, Pete's Dragon. The name couldn't be used due to this very reason. The second name decided upon was "Pyro" which is the Latin word for "fire". Deemed "too mature", the name was then altered to Spyro, which was the name that ultimately ended up sticking. After this the colour had to be finalised. As aforementioned, Spyro was initially depicted as green, but the developers didn't want him to blend into the grass he runs on. As such, a different colour for the dragon was a top priority. Thankfully, purple was chosen due to it contrasting well with greens and other colours commonly found in various environments, in addition to it being a unique colour that not many dragons used. With all of these details decided upon, Insomniac pushed forward into the design phase. Preliminary Character Designs Insomniac brought on illustrator Charles Zembillas and tasked him with creating their dragon with the mentioned caveats in place. Various drawings were the first pass in an attempt to find the character that would eventually become Spyro. The creative direction was simple and basic: Draw a dragon that a video game can be developed around. It didn't really matter what the dragon looked like at this point. Decisions would come later based upon the sketches that were generated as Charles embarked upon the creative journey. An important factor in the concept design process was that the character would eventually be modeled digitally and animated in a 3D program, so technical considerations and the final medium were something that had to be kept in mind while the conceptual sketches were in progress. Design Refinement The initial designs were rather large and bipedal in nature and features a rather crude, beaked dragon. After the first creative pass into the project, the producers came to an important decision: they decided that the dragon would be a character that appealed to 8-10 year olds. The character had to be cute, but at the same time, mischievous, bratty, unpredictable and something of an upstart. By the end of this pass, the character design that would become the basis for Spyro, that of a smaller, cuter, quadrupedal, snouted dragon, was defined. First Design (1998-2004) The finalized design of Spyro would go on to be used from the original 1998 PlayStation game, all the way up to the the last GameBoy Advance title, Spyro Orange: The Cortex Conspiracy. In all of these games (visibility aside) Spyro appears to be a relatively close recreation of his original HD Render used for official artwork, featuring pointy eyebrows that seem to float to a degree, a round head, and a stockish body. It should be noted that for Spyro 2, Spyro's wings were adjusted to be longer and anatomically adjusted to be like bat wings, with "fingers" spoking out from the second joint. Second Design (2004-2005) 2004's Spyro: A Hero's Tail features a slightly more refined and expressive Spyro with a more compact and chubby body, smaller eyes, and smaller, rounder eyebrows. This same design would be carried over to Spyro: Shadow Legacy on the Nintendo DS. Funnily enough, despite these in-game alterations, the original HD Artwork is still used for promotional material, leading to some dissonance in the designs, at least for A Hero's Tail, which had more visible character models. Third Design (2018) The triple remake, Spyro Reignited Trilogy, further refines the original design and with it, even includes brand-new 2D artwork to replace the original, greatly reducing the dissonance in models and art. This new design is much more fluid than the PS1 originals, while also appearing somewhat chubbier. The eyebrows are now properly attached to his face, but remain equally, if not more expressive than the originals. Personality Spyro is known for being courageous, headstrong, eager and arrogant. He has an immutable sense of heroism, friendliness, and has a fiery personality. He has little concern for his own safety and can be irresponsible at times, being extremely curious and hardly ever cautious, which could get him into trouble. Spyro gets into lots of mischief and is known to be cocky, a trait that can lead to his downfall. As a young dragon in the first game, Spyro was mischievous, bratty and somewhat of an upstart. In Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage! and Spyro: Year of the Dragon, he became less cocky and more levelheaded. He has minimal interest in love, as he lost his chance with Elora in Ripto's Rage! and regarded the scene of Hunter falling in love with Bianca as "a sad sight". In Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly, his demeanor is significantly friendlier than that of his former and succeeding games, despite the limited number of cutscenes he's featured in. In Spyro: A Hero's Tail, he has become much more arrogant, and in more recent outings, has actually denied help to those who did not expressly indicate that they would award him. Despite this, he still saves the world, even if it is not willingly. In the Reignited Trilogy, Spyro's overall personality seems to be more mature and friendly compared to that of the original trilogy. His first scene with Elora is significantly more friendly, almost playful in tone. Alongside this, his interactions with the various dragons in the first game have been significantly lightened and Spyro's tone has been made softer. Other * Dialogue * Sport News * Spyro's House * World Soccer Winning Eleven Spyro Edition Friends * Facundo Schenhals * Lionel Messi * Paulo Dybala Teams * Argentina * England * Greece * Uruguay (The Story Footballer of Felix the Cat) Uruguay kit Spyro the Dragon (Uruguay Home).png|(Light Blue/Black/Black) Spyro the Dragon (Uruguay Away).png|(White/White/White) Gallery Main: Spyro the Dragon/Gallery Video Main: Spyro the Dragon/Videos Wikipedia Wikipedia Fandom Spyro Fandom Category:Characters Category:Males Category:Spyro the Dragon Characters Category:Dragons Category:Argentina national football team Category:Greece national football team Category:The Story Footballer of Felix the Cat Characters Category:The Story Footballer of Felix the Cat Seasons 1 Characters Category:Sport News Characters Category:World Soccer Winning Eleven Spyro Edition Characters Category:The Story Footballer of Felix the Cat Seasons 2 Characters Category:Uruguay national football team Category:England national football team Category:Spyro the Dragon Characters Male Category:Spyro the Dragon Characters Spyro vs Boss Category:Spyro's House Characters Category:Spyro's House Characters Spyro vs Boss Category:Spyro's House Characters Sex Category:Spyro's House Characters Talk Category:Spyro's House Characters Sex Male